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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24375238">Patience</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftld/pseuds/ftld'>ftld</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>FF7 One-Shots [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Family, Hurt/Comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:55:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,406</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24375238</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftld/pseuds/ftld</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They don’t lie to each other anymore. [Tifa/Cloud] [Post-ACC]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>FF7 One-Shots [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>102</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Patience</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm on a quest to finish up all these little things I have floating around my hard drive. No beta.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="xcontrast">
<p></p><div><p>
      <span class="u">Patience</span>
    </p><p>Cloud tries to hide that he's afraid of the rain, but Tifa's always been good at noticing these types of things. It's gotten better since the geostigma—he's gotten better—but that lingering apprehension is still there. It festers, just under his skin, somewhere not many would think to look.</p><p>There are the days he's late coming home because he won't drive in it. Sometimes, if he's back early or took the day off, he'll go stand out in the alley a hair's breadth inside the cover of the awning. He sneers up at the sky with a specific brand of disdain he reserves for what he loathes most. It's those times she catches him stewing outside, inches beyond the reach of the falling water, that she worries most.</p><p>The weather in Edge has never been predictable. They have stretches of nothing but sun for months, but these past couple weeks it's only stopped raining long enough for the ground to dry out before it starts back up again. It puts Cloud's teeth on edge. He doesn't take as many deliveries, and none too far away. It's nice having him around, but he also doesn't sleep. Every night, without fail, he's up and out of bed; running himself empty without so much as lifting a finger.</p><p>There's the telltale patter of rain splashing against her windows and the creak of floorboards. Tifa hears Marlene and Denzel's door swing open, and then just shy of closed. This part is new; he didn't start until after he came back to them. Every time the humidity gives, he's up and in the kids' room. He sits in the armchair they dragged in there, so Marlene and Denzel could have a nice place to read, and watches over them until the sky clears. He likes to pretend that he's worried the kids will wake up, afraid of the storm—of the thunder—but Tifa knows better. Marlene grows more fearless with each passing day, and she hasn't been afraid of thunder and lightning ever since she realized Denzel wasn't.</p><p>Tifa doesn't know why Cloud insists on these night-time vigils. There is still so much about him that she doesn't understand—but she swore long ago to be patient, to wait. He'll tell her when he's ready. It's part of their new promise: they don't lie to each other, anymore. They don't tell each other everything, either, but there is no more avoidance in it. They say how they feel, even if only to say they don't want to talk about it. Tifa's never liked the vulnerability that comes with being candid and Cloud's worse—but it's better than that ill-defined, bratty promise she pulled out of him at a time in their lives when she had no right to demand anything of him. At least they're talking; at least Cloud is comfortable asking what he doesn't know rather than puzzling everything out on his own.</p><p>Tifa usually leaves Cloud be, but she's also starting to wonder if she catches him doing this so often because he wants her to. She's allowed to ask now, even if he doesn't want to answer, and as weighty as that privilege is, she decides that she will.</p><p>Tifa pads across the hall and pushes open the door. If it wasn't mildly disturbing, she might have laughed at the sight of Cloud sitting ram-rod straight, sword across his lap, and harness fastened over the worn t-shirt and shorts he wears for pajamas. His boots are laced tight. The look on his face is fierce—the same as if he were going into battle—and she wonders how anyone could expect her to not love him every bit as much as he loves the two sleeping children he watches over.</p><p>Cloud lets her observe for a moment before shifting that steady gaze of his toward the open door. Tifa inclines her head toward the stairs in question, and Cloud nods before rising and holstering his weapon in one fluid movement. Tifa never knows how to feel about these sorts of things. She doesn't like that he's so practiced, but she's thankful for it, too. After the battles ended and the dust settled, this is who Cloud wound up being. Tifa learned to accept it; after all, she didn't turn out how she thought she would, either. There's no sense in chasing after the ghosts of who they might have been if the past were different.</p><p>"Trouble sleeping?" Cloud asks as he passes her on the way downstairs.</p><p>"I should ask you the same thing."</p><p>Cloud pauses before continuing, brushing off the moment of uncertainty. "Yeah."</p><p>She waits until they're settled around the small, round table tucked away in the far corner of the kitchen before she shores up her courage. "Do you want to talk about it?"</p><p>"When I…" Cloud trails off and though his expression doesn't budge, she sees a flicker in his eye which means he's nervous. He seems to give great consideration to how he'll attempt to explain. "It was raining. When I woke up. When he died."</p><p>"Oh."</p><p>"I don't like waking up in the rain." He folds his hands on the table and studies the grain with a quiet intensity. It's a mannerism he gained when they were children, and he's never been able to shake it.</p><p>She reaches for his clasped hands and wraps her fingers as far around as they'll go. Her palms are flush against his knuckles; she savors the pleasure of his skin against hers. Tifa likes to believe it comforts him, but she's never managed to wrangle the nerve to bring it up. She's not convinced asking would have much of a point, anyway. Some things don't need to be talked out, they just are; Cloud taught her that.</p><p>"I didn't know." The condolence means little, but she feels the need to say it.</p><p>Cloud lifts his head to give her a look meant to ask, 'How could you?' The truth is that Tifa should have known. She knows exactly what happened that day, saw it through his eyes every bit as much as he did, and more importantly she knows Cloud. He glares at the rolling storm-clouds as if they owe him four years and two of his best friends, and she should have realized it was that simple.</p><p>Cloud glances toward the window and gives her a little more. His voice is quiet, like he doesn't mean for her to hear the words, but he does. He wouldn't say them at all, otherwise. "I'll never forget it. I can't. Not again."</p><p>"Forgetting is not the same as letting go."</p><p>"You're always telling me that." Cloud gives a weary sigh.</p><p>She shrugs and tightens her grip. "That's because it's true."</p><p>Cloud stills and wipes any trace of uncertainty from his face a couple seconds before she makes out the soft shuffles of little feet creeping down the stairs. She pulls herself back and tries to banish the worry from her posture.</p><p>Tifa catches the panicked look on Denzel's face before he thinks to try to hide it. Cloud's wince is nearly imperceptible, but she catches that, too, and she starts thinking that she read the situation wrong. Maybe what Cloud's trying to do is ease a different kind of fear. Maybe they all wake up when it storms, and Cloud likes the kids to wake up and see him. It seems like something he'd do.</p><p>She shifts her weight to lean against the back of her chair and flashes a smile at Denzel. Sometimes she still has trouble believing that he's theirs, for good. Cloud gets tripped up by it, too, but every once in awhile, when he's comfortable and at ease, he'll refer to Denzel as his kid instead of by name. Twice, now, she's heard Denzel's voice float through the kitchen window, telling his friends that his parents want him home for dinner. Tifa finds both of them to be unbearably adorable.</p><p>"You should get back to bed," Cloud says, his voice a quiet suggestion instead of a command.</p><p>Denzel wants to fight him, she can tell. His eyes dart from one corner of the room to another, desperately searching for something to talk about, some way to drag the moment out. There's a little quirk to Cloud's lip, this time upward, and she knows he noticed it, too.</p><p>Cloud preempts any further argument with ease she's never been able to manage. "We're tuning up the bike in the morning. How will you learn anything half-asleep?"</p><p>Tifa's never this good with Denzel. Marlene is easy, but even now Denzel is unfamiliar territory. She doesn't have the same effortless connection with him that Cloud does. She figures it's a boy thing, but that seems like an insulting simplification of a much more profound understanding.</p><p>"In the morning?" Denzel asks, meaning much more.</p><p>Cloud nods, sharp and serious, and Denzel trudges back up the stairs. Cloud pretends not to see the open, nervous glance Denzel shoots over his shoulder before he disappears down the hall.</p><p>"I wonder—"</p><p>"When that's going to stop?" Tifa asks once it's become apparent that Cloud isn't going to finish what he was saying.</p><p>Cloud drums each of his fingers across the table. "Yeah."</p><p>She's always wanted to know if Cloud left because he didn't want Denzel to think it was okay to give up like he had, so she beats down the nervousness of being so open, and asks.</p><p>Cloud keeps his gaze stuck to the top of the stairs. When the silence starts pressing in on them she gives him an out. "We don't have to talk about it."</p><p>"I never thought about it in those terms." Cloud's chin drops. He never talks about his departure if he doesn't have his head bowed toward the floor in shame. She feels petty for appreciating it, but she knows this, too, will fade; his shame, and her anger. "There've always been these thoughts haunting me. At first, I wondered if I was even capable of taking care of myself anymore. Then, it changed, and it became how can I take care of you, when I'm such a mess? And then there was Marlene, and then Denzel… and it got heavier and heavier until it was too much. And then Denzel wasn't the only one with geostigma, anymore.</p><p>"I thought I was done. I was angry to go out like that and I didn't want them to see me waste away. Didn't want you to, either."</p><p>Tifa cuts to the heart of matter. "They know you love them. They do. They <em>thrive</em> in it—and they love you back, unquestionably."</p><p>Cloud has an expression for everything—each is unique—and once she learned to read them, they became as clear as if he'd spoken aloud. The confused furrow of his brows, the slight widening of his eyes, and left corner of his lips turned down means that he's trying to figure out how she managed to come to that conclusion, and whether or not he wants to admit that he isn't sure if he agrees.</p><p>"I guess." He doesn't believe her, not entirely, but it's only a matter of time. That's something they have an abundance of, now.</p><p>Denzel and Marline's skepticism doesn't bother her the way it does Cloud. They've forgiven him—so has Tifa—but trust is harder to rebuild. She thinks it's good for him to be reminded of that. One of the best things to come out of the wreckage of Cloud leaving was that she learned she could hold a grudge, even against him. Ever since, Tifa has felt more secure and less like a pathetic girl with a crush. She's no longer blindly following Cloud around, so desperate for him to look at her that she'd forgive him anything without so much as thinking about it. She still forgives him every time, but now he earns it. It's a good thing; nothing healthy was ever going to come of her putting him on such an impossibly tall pedestal.</p><p>Tifa decides then and there: rainy nights won't be for standing vigil, not anymore. The kids will adjust, and as they learn to trust Cloud again, he'll learn to trust himself, too. They're not the only ones who love him, and it's time for him to start accepting that for what it is. She snatches his hand from his lap on her way around the table and back toward the stairs. He follows, but only because he's not sure what else to do.</p><p>"Tifa…"</p><p>They've had this argument before, and she's sure they'll have it countless more times. It's easier for Cloud when she's the one kept up by bad memories and old wounds that will never heal. When Tifa's the one sneaking across the hall to hide under his blankets he doesn't argue, but if it's the other way around he digs in his heels faster than she can blink. Cloud never wants to seek refuge. He'd rather be the harbor—shelter from the storm—but he lets her get away with these things, anyway. He lets her talk him into it every time.</p><p>She tosses an excuse to him like bait. "I don't like the rain, either."</p><p>They've been a lot of things to each other over the years. He's been her neighbor and her hero; the man she found at the train station and took home even though she wasn't sure he was the same boy she'd once known. Friends and lovers. Somewhere along the line all those little definitions morphed into a strange hybrid. She used to obsess over it, but she's found her answer. For Tifa, Cloud's place is written in ink—a purposeful, all-encompassing descriptor scrawled far above all the other roles he could fill. Tifa explains this in three succinct words with one foot on the next step up and her free hand gliding along the railing.</p><p>Cloud smiles.</p><p>For most people that wouldn't be enough, but she knows all of Cloud's faces, and smiles mean 'I love you, too'.</p><p>Tifa doesn't think he'll ever be able to stop fighting. Cloud is determined to never give another inch to his demons, and she's accepted what that means for them and their family. She loves all of him, even the bad parts, and someday, maybe, he'll find his peace. She'll wait.</p></div></div>
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